Schalke’s helper in dire need is said to be Christian Gross. The 66-year-old Swiss should save the tumbling Revierklub from relegation from the Bundesliga. This is reported by the “Ruhr Nachrichten” and “Bild” in unison after a board meeting on Wednesday evening. There, the heavily criticized sports director Jochen Schneider picked up permission to commit his preferred candidate to the Schalke rescue by next summer. The association did not initially confirm the personnel in the evening.
If this happens over Christmas, Gross could lead the training on Monday as the successor to Huub Stevens’ interim solution. The former coach of VfB Stuttgart (2009 to 2010) would already be the fourth coach of the bottom of the table without a win this season. The traditional club had previously separated from David Wagner and Manuel Baum before Schalke’s “coach of the century” took over Stevens for two games. Since Schneider’s first dream solution with the hapless tree failed, the 50-year-old Schalke sports board is also considered ailing. Should Gross not be able to save the club from relegation, Schneider is unlikely to be kept.
Both Wagner and Baum are still on the payroll at the financially troubled club. And a Herculean task awaits the new trainer. After the recent 0-1 defeat at home against promoted Arminia Bielefeld, Schalke are already six points behind relegation place 16. Tasmania Berlin’s negative Bundesliga record with 31 games without a win is not far away for the traditional club. In all of 2020, Schalke only managed one Bundesliga victory, on January 17 in a 2-0 win against Borussia Mönchengladbach.
After the separation from Wagner, the solution with Baum did not prove itself either. In ten Bundesliga games, he has drawn four and lost six. Former Stevens suffered the next setback against Bielefeld (0: 1) in his interlude, but then led the team to at least the last 16 of the DFB Cup in a 3-1 win against SSV Ulm on Tuesday evening. At the start of the new year, the Royal Blues will compete at Hertha BSC on January 2nd. In addition to Gross, the veterans Friedhelm Funkel and Armin Veh as well as Alexander Zorniger, Dimitrios Grammozis and Marc Wilmots were recently traded. Now Gross is apparently supposed to be the chosen one.
The 66-year-old Gross, who also played for VfL Bochum in 1980/81, is considered a “tough dog”. In his home country he won eight championship titles and five times the Swiss Cup with the Grasshopper Club Zurich and FC Basel. In other European countries he was in Stuttgart, where he worked with the sports director Jochen Schneider, and at Tottenham Hotspur.
At VfB, however, he only stayed a year. At that time, he saved the club from relegation and even led it into the Europa League. After a false start in the following season, however, he was released in autumn 2010. He later worked in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. In May of this year he actually announced the end of his active coaching career and wanted to concentrate on his consulting work for coaches. Now the rescue mission “to” Schalke could still drive him to a comeback.
.
